I was originally going to get a Alma rape scene pic, but that proved awkward to screenshoot...plus I'm not sure if I'm allowed to anywayOnce again I feel like blogging, and once again I'm stumped as to how to properly start a post. All I remember from high school on the structure of text is to repeat the topic phrase in the introduction, conclusion and basically every paragraph in between as though the reader has the attention span of something with a short attention span (leave me alone, I've never been good at spontaneous metaphors (or similes (jerk))).
So.
Why FEAR 2 makes me wish I hadn't spent money on it.
Now, as I am just typing what comes to mind, I should point out that the various factors that irk me will be in no order and the amount of text dedicated to them will not be an indication of importance; I'm simply going to type till I'm bored, out of complaints, or feeling so bitter and twisted that I have to go and kick a puppy (note: not serious).
Also, let's all pretend Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate don't exist.
First up: the freaking vehicle segments. The FEAR series is your standard twenty minutes into the future setting, so it's essentially the same as today but everything is a little more advanced. This meant in FEAR there were particle beams, lasers, hover drones, personnel cloaking, power armour and even small mechs. With the exception of the lasers, which were far too space opera for the setting, these were all fine; none were commonplace or over the top. This helped to ground you in the reality of the game, which was important as it made the supernatural portions even more surreal and jarring. But FEAR 2 had to up the ante a couple of parts where you conveniently score an unmanned mech and proceed to wreck havoc through the trashed streets. While the FEAR 1 mech was about car sized and packed either missiles or the gay pink lasers, the FEAR 2 mech is several stories tall, very well shielded and comes with both dual chain guns and (bigger) missiles. While joyriding in the mech the player is virtually invincible as few weapons can harm them meaningfully and the carriers of such weapons can be smeared into the ground rather easily.
I should mention that the original mechs do show up in FEAR 2. You encounter one as a boss, which takes far too much firepower to kill (freaking shields), and then later whilst in the larger mech a few appear to slow you down.
'Wait, what do you have against obliterating dozens of soldiers in a giant robot you fag?' You may hypothetically ask, my hypothetical reader. And then I'll respond with something like: 'Nothing, when it's appropriate to the game's style, which it's not you retard.'
Speaking of massive numbers of soldiers, the amount of Replica soldiers and Armacham mercenaries you fight in the game is staggering given the context. There's a battalion (1000) of the Replica soldiers so fair enough for them, but I don't see why there's a seemingly endless supply of mercenaries. Plot-wise they are there to clean up any evidence or personnel that could incriminate Armacham, essentially a private army. What bothers me is why. Sure Armacham is a traditional corrupt weapons research and manufacture company, but why do they need that much muscle? It's not like they regularly send out there black ops death squads...right? While this is a fairly minor point, it is related to a slightly more important one: secret underground bases.
As far as I can tell, Armacham Technology Corporation while being modelled after Umbrella for continued research into inadvisable ideas, they chose to use the Black Mesa School of architecture. In FEAR 1 you go to a water treatment plant they own, their local HQ and a secret underground base where they kept Alma. And that's fine, an evil corporation is expected to have a secret facility. Except, that in FEAR 2, you go to several more underground bases. First there's the one that seems like a normal hospital for the most part, but turns out to be underground (naturally). Then there's also the one under the Armacham controlled school and there's the base which houses the psychic amplifier. And don't you forget about the massive underground train system that connects at least two of the bases to one another.
So far I've complained about fairly trivial and personal things, so let's get into something less trivial (still rather personal). Horror segments, fear effects, supernatural elements; that stuff that puts you on the edge and makes the next gun fight more nerve wracking. Except that in FEAR 2, they've taken what little atmosphere they had and beaten it to death with bloom effects.
Now in FEAR (1) the scary moments were hit and miss; for every gem (such as Alma's shadow behind you when you walk into a dead end) there were duds (like coming across another splattered corpse and having the scare chord play). However in FEAR 2 they are all misses, from getting blinded with an overpowering bloom effect on the HUD to grappling with Alma in periodic quick time events.
Two of the main factors in player based fear are the unknown and personal risk, and once again FEAR uses this adequately whereas FEAR 2 fails.
In FEAR one of Alma's first actions is to vaporise your squad, which naturally puts you on edge and makes you wary of a possible fiery supernatural death. This feeling is reinforced when she does try to incinerate you. After jumping at radio static and little girl laughter for a while the player probably starts to think that it's all illusions and thus harmless, which is true...until about half way into the game. One of the types of horror moments are when you are trapped in flashbacks, usually consisting of the hospital (where Alma gave birth) and/or a fire filled void. These are fairly tame by themselves, but then the Nightmares show up. Suddenly the flashbacks become combat zones where you can barely see (due to the flashback gauze effect), can't slowmo and are under attack by suiciding monsters. Act 3 takes things further (as it should) when Harlan Wade releases Alma from the Vault, so you know that things are going to get messy. As you start to flee the imminent nuclear explosion, suddenly slowmo kicks in and the dozens of Nightmares start coming out of the walls. And they do this basically in every room as you flee the Vault.
FEAR 2 in its incompetence looks at what FEAR 1 did well and manages to lose what it did well while adding things that also fail. The Nightmares have been replaced with the functionally the same but visually different Specters. So instead of dull grey enemies that blend in with dark environments, there are bright and shiny white ones that stand out. Two new enemies are the Abominations and the Remnants. The former are failed experiments that crawl along walls and try to disembowel you. Initially the Abominations are rather unnerving (they also remind me of the fast zombies out of Half Life 2) but this diminishes fairly quickly when you realise how soft and squishy they are (unlike the fast zombies). The Remnants can be rather accurately described as insane zombie puppet masters. Like the Abominations, the basic idea behind Remnants is creepy, but the application of it is not so. The Remnants spend the fight running around reviving enemies as puppets and hitting you with an annoying scream attack if you get to close. And they take a lot of ammo to kill.
Alma and all her illusion based fun naturally get screwed as well. The scares and horror moments, which were already pretty scarce to begin with, are almost nonexistent, especially the subtle ones. Hell, you don't even get radio static anymore. Furthermore, you get visions of a tree with a swing that obviously is of some importance to Alma, just not enough to be mentioned anywhere before this game. In FEAR 1 you the player see Alma as a young girl in a red dress until she gets released from the Vault, and then she's older and naked. This change in appearance marks an important plot point and makes the climax of the first game seem more epic. However, since FEAR 2 consists mostly of events after FEAR 1, Alma is already released so there goes that sense of your ultimate enemy getting stronger, as she is already there. But who likes pacing and events getting more intense anyway.
Well I've prattled on for quite a while without any real sense of order or logical thought and I could probably just keep doing so, but I'm going to wrap this up. Ultimately FEAR 1 and 2 are both flawed games, but I can cut FEAR 1 a lot more slack because it was the first one. When it comes to the first of anything (movie, game, child, whatever) I am more tolerant of its flaw, as the creators had no good benchmark to compare to. This same ideology of mine means I expect any and all sequels to be better. What makes FEAR 2 so frustrating is that it doesn't even manage to be equal to FEAR 1.
In conclusion:
First Encounter Assault Recon: 3/5
Extraction Point: 1/5
Perseus Mandate: 1/5 (probably)
FEAR 2 Project Origin: 2/5
PS: Under my own reasoning, I have got to use this 3 part bitching session as a benchmark for any future posts. Therefore future posts will hopefully: be more concise, follow a more ordered thought and be just more entertaining.
So.
Why FEAR 2 makes me wish I hadn't spent money on it.
Now, as I am just typing what comes to mind, I should point out that the various factors that irk me will be in no order and the amount of text dedicated to them will not be an indication of importance; I'm simply going to type till I'm bored, out of complaints, or feeling so bitter and twisted that I have to go and kick a puppy (note: not serious).
Also, let's all pretend Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate don't exist.
First up: the freaking vehicle segments. The FEAR series is your standard twenty minutes into the future setting, so it's essentially the same as today but everything is a little more advanced. This meant in FEAR there were particle beams, lasers, hover drones, personnel cloaking, power armour and even small mechs. With the exception of the lasers, which were far too space opera for the setting, these were all fine; none were commonplace or over the top. This helped to ground you in the reality of the game, which was important as it made the supernatural portions even more surreal and jarring. But FEAR 2 had to up the ante a couple of parts where you conveniently score an unmanned mech and proceed to wreck havoc through the trashed streets. While the FEAR 1 mech was about car sized and packed either missiles or the gay pink lasers, the FEAR 2 mech is several stories tall, very well shielded and comes with both dual chain guns and (bigger) missiles. While joyriding in the mech the player is virtually invincible as few weapons can harm them meaningfully and the carriers of such weapons can be smeared into the ground rather easily.
I should mention that the original mechs do show up in FEAR 2. You encounter one as a boss, which takes far too much firepower to kill (freaking shields), and then later whilst in the larger mech a few appear to slow you down.
'Wait, what do you have against obliterating dozens of soldiers in a giant robot you fag?' You may hypothetically ask, my hypothetical reader. And then I'll respond with something like: 'Nothing, when it's appropriate to the game's style, which it's not you retard.'
Speaking of massive numbers of soldiers, the amount of Replica soldiers and Armacham mercenaries you fight in the game is staggering given the context. There's a battalion (1000) of the Replica soldiers so fair enough for them, but I don't see why there's a seemingly endless supply of mercenaries. Plot-wise they are there to clean up any evidence or personnel that could incriminate Armacham, essentially a private army. What bothers me is why. Sure Armacham is a traditional corrupt weapons research and manufacture company, but why do they need that much muscle? It's not like they regularly send out there black ops death squads...right? While this is a fairly minor point, it is related to a slightly more important one: secret underground bases.
As far as I can tell, Armacham Technology Corporation while being modelled after Umbrella for continued research into inadvisable ideas, they chose to use the Black Mesa School of architecture. In FEAR 1 you go to a water treatment plant they own, their local HQ and a secret underground base where they kept Alma. And that's fine, an evil corporation is expected to have a secret facility. Except, that in FEAR 2, you go to several more underground bases. First there's the one that seems like a normal hospital for the most part, but turns out to be underground (naturally). Then there's also the one under the Armacham controlled school and there's the base which houses the psychic amplifier. And don't you forget about the massive underground train system that connects at least two of the bases to one another.
So far I've complained about fairly trivial and personal things, so let's get into something less trivial (still rather personal). Horror segments, fear effects, supernatural elements; that stuff that puts you on the edge and makes the next gun fight more nerve wracking. Except that in FEAR 2, they've taken what little atmosphere they had and beaten it to death with bloom effects.
Now in FEAR (1) the scary moments were hit and miss; for every gem (such as Alma's shadow behind you when you walk into a dead end) there were duds (like coming across another splattered corpse and having the scare chord play). However in FEAR 2 they are all misses, from getting blinded with an overpowering bloom effect on the HUD to grappling with Alma in periodic quick time events.
Two of the main factors in player based fear are the unknown and personal risk, and once again FEAR uses this adequately whereas FEAR 2 fails.
In FEAR one of Alma's first actions is to vaporise your squad, which naturally puts you on edge and makes you wary of a possible fiery supernatural death. This feeling is reinforced when she does try to incinerate you. After jumping at radio static and little girl laughter for a while the player probably starts to think that it's all illusions and thus harmless, which is true...until about half way into the game. One of the types of horror moments are when you are trapped in flashbacks, usually consisting of the hospital (where Alma gave birth) and/or a fire filled void. These are fairly tame by themselves, but then the Nightmares show up. Suddenly the flashbacks become combat zones where you can barely see (due to the flashback gauze effect), can't slowmo and are under attack by suiciding monsters. Act 3 takes things further (as it should) when Harlan Wade releases Alma from the Vault, so you know that things are going to get messy. As you start to flee the imminent nuclear explosion, suddenly slowmo kicks in and the dozens of Nightmares start coming out of the walls. And they do this basically in every room as you flee the Vault.
FEAR 2 in its incompetence looks at what FEAR 1 did well and manages to lose what it did well while adding things that also fail. The Nightmares have been replaced with the functionally the same but visually different Specters. So instead of dull grey enemies that blend in with dark environments, there are bright and shiny white ones that stand out. Two new enemies are the Abominations and the Remnants. The former are failed experiments that crawl along walls and try to disembowel you. Initially the Abominations are rather unnerving (they also remind me of the fast zombies out of Half Life 2) but this diminishes fairly quickly when you realise how soft and squishy they are (unlike the fast zombies). The Remnants can be rather accurately described as insane zombie puppet masters. Like the Abominations, the basic idea behind Remnants is creepy, but the application of it is not so. The Remnants spend the fight running around reviving enemies as puppets and hitting you with an annoying scream attack if you get to close. And they take a lot of ammo to kill.
Alma and all her illusion based fun naturally get screwed as well. The scares and horror moments, which were already pretty scarce to begin with, are almost nonexistent, especially the subtle ones. Hell, you don't even get radio static anymore. Furthermore, you get visions of a tree with a swing that obviously is of some importance to Alma, just not enough to be mentioned anywhere before this game. In FEAR 1 you the player see Alma as a young girl in a red dress until she gets released from the Vault, and then she's older and naked. This change in appearance marks an important plot point and makes the climax of the first game seem more epic. However, since FEAR 2 consists mostly of events after FEAR 1, Alma is already released so there goes that sense of your ultimate enemy getting stronger, as she is already there. But who likes pacing and events getting more intense anyway.
Well I've prattled on for quite a while without any real sense of order or logical thought and I could probably just keep doing so, but I'm going to wrap this up. Ultimately FEAR 1 and 2 are both flawed games, but I can cut FEAR 1 a lot more slack because it was the first one. When it comes to the first of anything (movie, game, child, whatever) I am more tolerant of its flaw, as the creators had no good benchmark to compare to. This same ideology of mine means I expect any and all sequels to be better. What makes FEAR 2 so frustrating is that it doesn't even manage to be equal to FEAR 1.
In conclusion:
First Encounter Assault Recon: 3/5
Extraction Point: 1/5
Perseus Mandate: 1/5 (probably)
FEAR 2 Project Origin: 2/5
PS: Under my own reasoning, I have got to use this 3 part bitching session as a benchmark for any future posts. Therefore future posts will hopefully: be more concise, follow a more ordered thought and be just more entertaining.
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